What to do when people aren’t watching your Facebook Live show

Your business is your life, your baby, your EVERYTHING! You work from sunup ‘til sundown doing everything you can to make sure it’s successful. At night, you’re either up worrying or asleep dreaming about ways to make it even better.

Because you know your business inside and out, you know you need to up your social media marketing game, but this whole Facebook Live show thing has you a little… terrified, sweaty, uncomfortable, nauseated… (the list goes on).

After weeks of pep talks and a couple of times where you almost pushed that “go live” button, then chickened out, you’ve finally worked up the courage to record your first live broadcast.

You outlined some (not to brag) kickass content, you made sure you’re set up with the latest tech, and you’re lookin’ fine in your new #badassboss outfit.

After your first live show, you’re feeling pumped!!

… even though only 2 people showed up (…including your mom).

Fast forward to a month later… and you’re not so chipper anymore. You’re downright defeated. After eight live shows, your largest viewership topped out at a measly THREE people—and even your mom stopped watching…

So many Facebook livers, both newbies and seasoned vets, have felt this same pain.

It can be so demoralizing to show up on Facebook Live over and over again when no one is showing up to watch you.

So, what do you do when people aren’t showing up to watch your broadcasts? And how can you drive more viewers to your live shows in order to make sure that all your hard work doesn’t go to waste?

Lucky for you, I’ve got seven helpful tips that you can use to ensure that people are showing up to watch your live broadcasts.

#1 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Make Sure Your Content is Aligned With Your Ideal Customer

Gather round kids, it’s story time!

This one time, I was trolling through Facebook, and I landed on someone’s Tupperware Facebook Page. Excited to see the latest in tupperware trends, I eagerly scrolled through their content.

After a few minutes, I was a little confused. I noticed that instead of just bowls and lids, they were also posting videos and images of beautiful wedding hairstyles and florals. … Huh? I thought to myself, “Something just doesn’t add up here.” This is the perfect example of someone whose content is not aligned with their ideal customer.

If you are attracting people to your page with the wrong kind of content, it’s going to be harder to turn them into customers. If you tell them you’re selling tupperware, and then bamboozle them with wedding stuff, then there’s a disconnect between what you’re sharing and what you’re selling.

Like me, your site visitors are going to be confused and unlikely to return to your page. In a nutshell, your potential customers aren’t going to be customers anymore. #TheyGone

#2 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Niche Your Content Down (At the Get-Go)

When you’re first starting out, the more you can niche down your content, the better.

If you’re new around here, you might be thinking… niche what, Cam? (**It rhymes with quiche, it sounds like niece… what in the heck is this niche-ing thing you’re talking about?!**)

Let’s break this down a little. If I showed up to Facebook Live, and I’m only talking about green smoothies, then I’ve honed in on the content I want to deliver, and I’ve niched myself down really well.

But if I show up on your Facebook Live show, and I start talking about green smoothies, then I take a little detour to talk about gluten-free dieting, and then I wander off on another tangent about exercise regiments, I haven’t narrowed down my focus enough.

This is especially important if you’re first starting out. If it’s the beginning of your company (or of your live marketing campaign), then it’s going to be hard for your business to grow if you’re not focused in on delivering content about one particular product/service.

I know this can feel really restrictive if you’re excited about taking your brand in a few different directions. The best strategy is to start really niched down in your content, and then down the road, you can start to expand into other areas once you have a larger audience or tribe of people who are following you. Basically, you want to make sure you’ve built up your fan club by hooking them with your first piece of content before pitching them a bunch of other ideas.

#3 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Promote, Promote, Promote

One more time all together now—promote!

Ok, this might feel like a thank-you-captain-obvious moment but I have to say it:

————–> People aren’t going to show up to your live shows if they don’t know they’re going on.

You have to make sure that you’re getting the word out about when you’re going live and what you’re doing/teaching during your upcoming broadcast.

There are lots of different ways you can promote your upcoming live show. You can…

Create a Facebook Event

Post About it on Your Page, Group, or Profile

Send an Email Reminder to Your Email List

Send a Broadcast Out to Your Facebook Messenger Subscribers

I’m a big fan of #4 up there. I like to schedule my live broadcast reminders to go out via Facebook Messenger the moment I’m live on Facebook. In these broadcasts, I try to hook my audience in by letting my subscribers know I’m live, exciting them and enticing them to learn more about the topic, and putting a handy-little link to join right at their fingertips.

#4 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Show up Consistently and Provide VALUE

As with everything in business, consistency is key. This also applies to your live broadcasts. You need to make sure that you set a consistent time and day each week that you’re going to show up on live, communicate this schedule clearly to your audience, and then actually show up when you say you’re going to.

If you’re not constantly showing up at your scheduled time, then your potential customers don’t know when to meet you. You could have people that are actually excited to learn more about your company, but you’re blowing it if you’re not showing up to talk about your business when you say you will be.

Once you do have a consistent schedule for your live broadcasts, you need to make sure that when you’re going live, you’re providing VALUE to your viewers.

Nobody wants to feel like they just wasted 30 minutes of their live watching you ramble on about… what was it again? (Your cat, your kids, your gym routine…)

You need to make sure that you’re showing up to either…

Educate

Entertain

Or Inspire

People are only going to tune into your live broadcasts if they feel like the content you’re delivering is actually going to help them in some way.

Whether that’s educating them on how to market their business using Facebook Live, entertaining them with hilarious jokes from your latest greeting card line, or inspiring them to join the newest fitness challenge at your gym, you HAVE to make sure that you’re not just recording live broadcasts because you like the sound of your own voice.

———> You have to provide value to your viewers.

#5 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Write a Clear, Catchy Title

Think about scrolling through your newsfeed or browsing the subject lines of the 2,000 emails in your inbox (you gotta clean that ish out!).

Are you gonna click on an email or link that sounds confusing or boring?

NO!! Nobody gets excited to read more when they see a dull or vague title.

Let’s take a look at a few stinkers:

Tips for a Healthy Life

Uh….. what?! Are you going to be talking about dieting, exercise, relaxation techniques??

Real Estate Tips

So boring! Are you talking about buying or selling your home?? Is this for real estate agents or homeowners?!

New Fall Styles

Zzzzzzz (sorry, I fell asleep for a moment)… Are we talking kids’ clothes, mens’ clothes, old granny clothes??!

Stuff for your Kitchen

Really…?! Didn’t your middle school English teacher tell you to NEVER use the word stuff!? This title tells me NOTHING and leaves me completely disinterested.

… If those dull-as-a-box-of-rocks titles landed in my inbox, I wouldn’t click on them. And I guarantee your customers wouldn’t either.

When writing titles and descriptions for your live videos, you have to make sure that they are both clear (including specific), so that people know EXACTLY what you’re going to be talking about, and catchy, so that it hooks people in.

Let’s try for take 2 of those snooze-fest titles up there.

How the Ketogenic Diet will Save Your Life and Make You Feel 10-Years Younger

10 Insider Tricks for Selling Your Home FAST (and Making Tons of Ca$h)

Take it to the Runway: Women’s High-Fashion Fall Trends that Will Turn Heads

Bake Cakes that Will Put Martha to Shame: The Best Stand Mixers of 2018

Excited to tune in now? (Sorry, Charlie… those are all fake!)

#6 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Get Your Viewers to Leave Comments

If you want to use a Facebook Live show to market your business successfully, you have to learn to play the FB game.

To ensure that you’re extending your reach to many more viewers and hitting tons of extra news feeds, you have to make sure that you’re encouraging your live viewers to leave you comments—even if it’s only one or two people.

“Why?” you might ask.

Because Facebook says so. Their super-secret algorithm is designed to ensure that they are promoting (by putting in news feeds) videos with lots of engagement. To put it simply… the more comments you get, the more news feeds you’ll hit.

How can you drive your viewers to engage more with your videos? I’m glad you asked!

One really simple way is to ask them questions and then tell them to answer those questions in the comment section of your video.

The other technique I use for boosting comments is called an engagement loop. In short, you want to create a never-ending loop of comments. When someone leaves a comment on your video, you then go back after the video is over and reply to their comment with a question. That ensures that they have to return to your video and comment again to answer your question. You can then reply and keep the loop going or end the conversation there.

And it really works! I have found that a majority of the time, people WILL reply back to you. This is a pretty great system because if you’re getting double the comments on your content, then the Facebook gods are going to put your video into more news feeds.

The last strategy I use for upping engagement on my live videos is to trigger a content upgrade based on viewers’ comments. This particular tactic requires you to use ManyChat and Facebook Messenger.

If you want more information on how to implement ManyChat, I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to this topic, which you can check out here. But basically, in your video you would say to viewers, “If you’d like to receive my **piece of content** (cheat sheet, flyer, etc.), comment ______ (keyword) on this video, and I’ll send it over to you via Facebook messenger.”

This ensures that your viewers are leaving you comments in order to get access to your content upgrades.

#7 Way to Make Sure People Show Up to Your Facebook Live Show: Even After Your Show Ends… Promote, Promote, Promote Some More!

Just because your live show is over doesn’t mean it’s dead! You can keep using it as long as you keep promoting it!

What a lot of Facebook Live show newbies don’t realize is that a majority of your views will actually happen AFTER the live show. But ONLY if you’re promoting the video! (See captain-obvious comment from #3 up top… people won’t watch the video if they don’t know it exists!)

There are a couple of really easy ways to keep promoting those live videos after they’re over. You can…

Turn your video into a Facebook Ad by embedding the video into the ad itself

Embed the video on your website or into a blog post

If you’re not sure how to embed your live videos into posts or webpages, check out a simple video on how to get the code for embedding videos on your website.

Let’s recap!

So, if you’re suffering from a bad case of no-one’s-showing-up-to-my-facebook-live-show syndrome, follow these seven easy steps for increasing your viewership and feeling all better.

Make Sure Your Content is Aligned With Your Ideal Customer

Niche Your Content Down (At the Get-Go)

Promote, Promote, Promote

Show up Consistently and Provide VALUE

Write a Clear, Catchy Title

Get Your Viewers to Leave Comments

Even After Your Show Ends… Promote, Promote, Promote Some More!

You’re a busy business tycoon—make sure you’re not wasting your time recording live videos that NO ONE shows up for!